I’m just guessing but I believe it was stories by Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers who really focused the public’s attention on Bergdahl’s actions.
Personally, I was stunned that they had traded for these 5 specific terrorists. The fact that we got one of our soldiers back still seems like a good idea to me. But the traded for terrorists should never have been on the table. IMHO, of course.
Yes it was always his fellow soldiers. Enough were pissed off about it at the time that it didn’t stay secret for long. Just because the majority of the public was unaware does not mean that the information was not out there. And readily available to the White House. There was a very extensive 15-6 investigation that was completed years ago minus any interview with Bergdahl himself. The fact that there would be controversy should have been easily predictable. The fact that press conferences and glowing comments about Bergdahl’s service from the National Security Advisor would piss off soldiers and vets should have been easily predictable. I always assume that the White House and the Pentagon leadership has more information than I could ever hope to have. So why did I know and they didn’t? I think they were well prepared to deal with any political fallout from releasing 5 high value prisoners for one soldier. But they seemed to be totally surprised by the fact that he was a deserter. That is just stunning to me. They had 5 years to prepare for the aftermath. They are supposed to be politically savvy and smart. No one showed it during this fiasco. Dempsey’s statement was reasonable but it came too late.
The latest what? WH spin? You have a cite for that or is Rice on vacation.
The Taliban earlier said Bergdahl taught them to make detonators. Now they threaten to kill him if we don’t release 5 deadly terrorists. These were the people we were trying to stop in the first place. It’s like getting an ultimatum for Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Eichmann, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Mengele in exchange for Private Ryan which they claim is aiding and abetting them.
That’s not a rational transaction. The harm the terrorists represent to the Afghani people and other soldiers is too great. The cost is too high.
The person who risked Bergdhal’s life is Bergdhal and there are limits to the extent to which his safety is secured.
You really think that would be publicly available information? :dubious:
You have no way of knowing that either. You do know that we took him back to face our justice, even if we didn’t legally have to, or morally either in your universe.
But, no matter what he did or how much time elapsed since, Jenkins was still one of us, always had been, always will be. So is Bergdahl, and so is any other American. To many of us, that matters.
Oh, and since you ask about the other three, but don’t know about Wikipedia, here:
Part of the problem with Jenkins is that he didn’t want to be brought home.
Even after his wife returned to Japan, there was a long diplomatic dance as the Japanese and North Koreans negotiated his release: he initially refused to go to any country that had an extradition treaty or status of forces agreement with the U.S., because he feared what would happen in his court martial (and the U.S. made it quite plain there would be a court martial). See, e.g., this Asia Times article from 2004.
James Dresnok, meanwhile, was filmed within the past decade saying he intended to spend the rest of his life in North Korea and that he could not be enticed back stateside.
without taking into consideration the cost involved that’s a disingenuous answer. We have an obligation to the Afghan people and the remaining soldiers not to make things worse. It matters to many of us that rational thought goes into the rescue.
A great deal of resources effort and risk, possibly the death of as many as 14 soldiers went into retrieving Bergdahl. I say retrieved and not rescue because it appears he voluntarily left his post and against the advice of local tribesman walked straight into enemy territory. The idea that we take care of our own has it’s limits.
How would you know? You and others just argued that we cannot decide anything about Bergdahl until we have him in our custody and talk to him. Hey, maybe Jenkins was under duress when he said he didn’t want to be brought home. How come that logic only works for Bergdahl? Same with Dresnok.
So I see that “we don’t leave our own behind” is not universal. Pretty selective. Deserters to Taliban - yes. Deserters to North Korea - not so much.
So correct me if I’m wrong, but if this whole issue were a trial, wouldn’t it be basically a death penalty case (ie there is a more than reasonable chance that if this guy were left in Taliban hands, he would die sooner rather than later)? Does the publicly released information really stand up as a death penalty case? I’m not so sure, but it does make me wonder whether those who advocate “just let him rot” really think that he deserves to die on the basis of what the public knows about his behavior and motives.
Bergdahl was only gone a day or two before he was captured, and desertion normally requires one to be gone for 30 days or more. Further, even desertion only carries a maximum penalty of 5 years, so this would not be a death penalty case unless treason could be proven.
I think you misunderstood my query. When I said “if this whole issue were a trial,” I meant it metaphorically, not literally. I think the rest of what I wrote will make more sense in this light. 
The negotiations to get Bergdahl were publicly available information months ago. Why not the ones for Jenkins?
No, we can’t decide about Bergdahl until we hear his side of the story. I didn’t say anything about needing to have him in our custody first.
I don’t know much about how the U.S. thought of Jenkins and Dresnok back in the 1960s and 70s. The part of the story I know about is the more recent part, the part where Jenkins quite publicly stated he’d go to Indonesia, he’d go to China, he’d go here, there, and elsewhere, but he would not go to the United States or any country that had an extradition treaty therewith. If there was any sign of duress in discussions with a guy who said he really really wanted out of North Korea, but not if it meant going to a military prison, where are you seeing it?
Similarly, if there is or ever was any evidence known to the United States that Dresnok was under duress when he said he was staying in North Korea, then we should have tried (or tried harder) to get him home. There’s no such evidence, however.
With Bergdahl, though, there’s no video saying “hey, I’m happy with the Taliban, and I would not go back for a billion dollars.” (Further, you still haven’t proven that Bergdahl is a deserter, much less a deserter to the Taliban, whereas Jenkins finally had his court martial and his punishment.)
You can’t always do it, no. But you always have to try your best. One thing you do *not *do is abandon one of your own, then try to rationalize your decision away as being his own fault, and for reasons you may well have invented.
Afghanistan is exactly like North Korea, isn’t it? And Bergdahl’s situation is exactly the same as Jenkins.
Come on now.
The negotiations surrounding Jenkins’s release were known and discussed for several years prior to his leaving North Korea.
Beyond that, North Korea and the Taliban aren’t the same and don’t act the same, and I’m not sure why you’d expect negotiations to be conducted in the same manner. Certainly not every negotiation is identical to any other. Obama discussed the negotiations vis-a-vis Bergdahl with Congress because it would mean releases from Gitmo; would there have been any similar need to tell anybody anything if the U.S. was negotiating with the DPRK back in the 1960s?
I agree with the first part of this (“One thing you do not do is abandon one of your own”), but the second is balderdash.
The core facts involving Bergdahl were known well before this was a political issue. There are ten public witnesses (not of a specific desertion, but who were on scene), the home shipment of personal effects, the emails, the note, and who knows what other intelligence. Further, despite the majesty of the federal government and a strong political incentive to do so, the administration has been unable to muster a single fact supporting its characterization of Bergdahl as a “hero” or as one serving “with honor and distinction.” Nor, to my knowledge, have the Bergdahl parents disagreed with the characterization of their son walking away from the base.
Now, I’m not making or condoning a conclusion as a matter of military justice, nor am I in the “leave him behind” camp. I make a deal and get the guy stateside. But as far as operational intelligence goes in the context of military (rescue) or policy (rescue vs swap vs neither) decision, the publicly available facts here are about as clear as can be, and the privately available facts (i.e., interviews with everyone on base) no doubt moreso.
I don’t know what to make of this. Note that although this is on washingtonpost.com it’s under a blogs subdirectory, which causes me to take it with a grain of salt. It’s being talked about all over the web, but from what I can see it’s all blogs and, oddly enough, a lot of them are right-wing blogs (including Breitbart). I guess if Chambliss really said this we’ll know soon enough.
Ah, so for 37 or so years US didn’t really care about him. What happened to the “we don’t leave our own behind”?
I already said I don’t know much about what the U.S. did or didn’t do for the first 30 years of his absence (see post 492); I’m not sure how much clearer I can be. “I don’t know” is not equivalent to “we don’t care” in any language with which I am familiar.
I DO know the U.S. has pushed the North Koreans many many times over the years about POW/MIA issues dating to the Korean War, from which nearly eight thousand Americans remain unaccounted-for. We’ve spent more than half a century and many millions of dollars trying to find them. I don’t know whether Jenkins and the other three were included in the efforts or not; I do know our efforts have generally been pretty unsuccessful, mostly because we have very little leverage with North Korea and they are not exactly eager to cooperate. That doesn’t mean we don’t care; it means despite our caring, we haven’t managed to bring them home. Yet.
I can pretty much guarantee that they were not.
But I don’t even care about the US government part of it. You know all those veteran MIA/POW advocacy groups that exist. Find me one mention of them advocating for the return of Jenkins, Dresnok, Abshier, or Parrish. You know, in the “we don’t leave one of our own behind” kind of pathos.